


every wave is tidal

by girljustdied



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-13
Updated: 2014-06-13
Packaged: 2019-10-08 03:03:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17378366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girljustdied/pseuds/girljustdied
Summary: the plan to run like hell to the coast works out just fine. great, even. bellamy has trouble adjusting.





	every wave is tidal

**Author's Note:**

> prompt was "you drink her sweat like it was wine."

Oceans end. From the Ark little could compare to the deep, black nothingness of the universe. The blue circling the planet they orbited: finite. Closed in.

When Bellamy was young, his mother would press a hand to the communal viewing pane and he’d gasp at how whole bodies of water disappeared under her thumb.

“Not so scary, huh?” infinite answers in her smile.

Waves crashing roughly around his ankles, he raises a palm to the horizon and only succeeds in partially blocking out the sun.

“The books on the Ark didn’t do it justice,” Clarke’s voice. “The films, neither.”

Paradise. Her skin is burnt and peeling from too much exposure. Sweat beads on her forehead, her upper lip, the cloth of her shirt at the small of her back.

“If you’re waiting for me to tell you that running was the right decision,” the words careful and measured, “It’s not gonna happen.”

“Bellamy,” his name not much more than a restless sigh lost in the roar of the waves. And then, firmer, “You know, I think we wouldn’t be here unless somewhere, down deep, you agreed with me.”

“You think so,” he turns to look at her.

“Yeah,” she has a frustrating habit of responding to all questions despite how sarcastic in nature they may be, “I do.”

He’d wanted to live. He wants to live.

Still, “Maybe this is paradise, Clarke. But it isn’t home.”

She kicks off her boots and moves to stand with him in the shallows. “I know. I miss it, too.”

He wonders if she misses the Ark. She must.

A bitter, coppery taste in his mouth, “I’ve never seen a movie. I guess now I never will.”

“What does it matter?” her unflustered tone sets his teeth on edge. “We’re both here now.”

Can feel her eyes on him, waiting for reassurance he’s not willing to give. He’d sooner peel her wet clothes off, taste the salt of her sweat-soaked skin and drink deep the way they’d been told not to do with seawater. Make her tremble and shake. But, well—

“It matters.”

She wades out in her clothes until the water is up to her chest. The ends of her hair dip in and make the strands hang heavy around her face.

“Don’t,” he warns when she lifts her feet from being safely planted in the ground to float on her back. “We still don’t know what the hell’s in there.”

She complies, but still argues facetiously, “Sure I do.” Her mouth quirks, already laughing at her own thought, “I am.”

“Funny.”

“C’mon, Bellamy,” she grins brightly. “The whole camp thinks you’re scared of the Atlantic.”

“The hell I am,” he bites out, and leaves.

Oceans end. Somewhere in the galaxy his mother’s body floats, still turning head over foot in the vacuum.

Octavia once told him that she believed that Aurora had become a part of a star, bright and beautiful for always. Their feet planted on Earth together, his little sister had pressed her cheek to his and pointed up into the sky.

“That one,” her voice had a dreamy sadness to it. “That one in Orion’s belt.”

Bellamy didn’t have the heart to tell her how impossible that was then; he never would.

That star is what keeps him anchored as he floats on his back in the sea late that night. It’s almost like being in outer space, drifting as he is in almost total darkness. On a whim, he closes his eyes and easily blocks every tiny pinprick of light.

The universe, snuffed out.

The water is freezing and thrashes him round, filling his mouth and nose until he begins to choke.

Thinks, this is not what it must feel like to be a god.

Thinks, I’m sorry, Mother.

The next thing he knows, he’s coughing up saltwater into the sand of the shore, small hands pounding his back to help him get it all out.

“There you go.” Clarke. “That’s good, you’re okay, you’re safe now.”

No, never. That’s the whole point.

His throat burns as he gasps in as much air as his body can stomach; he doesn’t understand why she moves to hold tightly onto his body until she murmurs, “You’re shaking like a leaf, lets get back to the others—we’ll light a bonfire.”

He’d much rather get his blood pumping with a fight, “What the hell were you doing out alone at night?”

“I wasn’t alone,” she retorts belligerently. “I was following you. It’s a good thing I did, too—I can’t believe you thought you had to prove—”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” he shifts against her until he can squint in the direction of her face, “I don’t have to prove anything to anyone.”

It’s too dark to see, but he can imagine the arch of her eyebrow, “No?”

He knows better than to answer a rhetorical question. Kisses her instead.

“I want to live,” he doesn’t tell her. “I want you.”

“You and me,” she doesn’t gasp out against his mouth. “That’s what home is, don’t you get it?”

Still. They fumble and clutch at each other hungrily despite how determined Bellamy knows that he at least had been to never go there with her. Her clothes are soaked—she must have come in after him—and stick stubbornly when he tries to undress her.

A muffled grunt of pain against his throat, and he stops.

“What are you doing?” she sounds thoroughly dazed.

“I don’t know,” he mutters, and leaves.


End file.
